


Assorted Knick-Knacks

by arliechay



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Autistic!Jake, Gina is a good bro, Stim Toys, Stimming, The Wednesday Incident, amy santiago mentioned, jake has adhd, neurodivergent!jake, rosa diaz mentioned, terry jeffords mentioned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 00:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12716352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arliechay/pseuds/arliechay
Summary: Based during The Wednesday Incident (season 2 ep 16)Holt's no-clutter ruling has unintended effects on Jake. Gina notices.





	1. The Decluttering

**Author's Note:**

> This work is mainly about Jake stimming. I'm autistic so I've based it on my own experiences however I think it could fit with the popular hc of ADHD!Jake which is basically cannon at this point. Anyway Jake is generally neurodivergent and stims.

Gina peered over her phone as the captain marched around the bullpen confiscating clutter: Terry’s family photos; Amy’s trivia trophies; Rosa’s definitely non-regulation throwing stars, all of it cast into a brown cardboard box. When he reached Jake’s desk he noticed a distinct lack of trash so at least Peralta had taken some action following his earlier outburst. However the desk was still scattered in a menagerie of toys and knick knacks. The captain sighed as he removed the offending items before passing Gina to lock the box into his filing cabinet.

Jake returned from surveilling a suspect with Charles half an hour or so later, clearly frustrated. Gina hid her concern, remaining at her desk, but watched carefully as Jake took in his barren workspace. Visibly shaking off his discontent he sat down and swivelled to face Charles.  
‘Well that was a huge waste of time. What are we gonna put in the report? That we still can’t he has ties to the mob but we’ve gained vital information on his workout routine?’  
Boyle looked equally downhearted as he replied ‘Our intel must have been faulty, that’s on me, it was my CI,’  
‘No,’ Jake interrupted, restlessly fluttering his hands over where his stim toys used to be ‘this is my fault. The only reason we’re doing this is because I failed to bring down the entire mafia when I was undercover. God, I feel so stupid!’  
By the end of his sentence Jake’s fingers were pulling at the hair on either side of his head.  
Gina frowned before standing to knock on Holt’s door.  
‘Captain?’ she inquired. Holt grumbled his acquiescence from his chair and Gina entered.  
‘So, you know those thing-a-majigs you took from Jake’s desk?’  
‘Yes, he shouldn’t be wasting work time fiddling with this inane garbage. What about it?’  
‘Well,’ said Gina cautiously, ‘I’ve known Jake a long time and said garbage is kinda vital to his process.’  
‘Gina I understand that you were children together however you are not any more and these toys just don’t belong in the workplace. I won’t discuss this again.’  
Bold though she was, Gina knew better than to press the issue; with the captain in his current mood it could well end in her suspension.

Throughout the afternoon she periodically looked up from whatever twitter war she was currently waging to check on Jake. She was displeased to witness him chewing at his thumb and occasionally striking himself on the head and shoulders. She exhaled her silent relief when Jake finally left work. He must have more toys at home, she thought, he’ll be fine tomorrow.  
She was wrong.


	2. The Blanket

The next day Gina looked up to see Jake at her desk, despite it being his day off. He told her his plan to investigate the captain’s bad mood and she subtly inspected his hands before waving him into Holt’s office. She deduced all of Jake’s chewable stim toys were locked in the captain’s cabinet judging by the raw skin of his knuckles. In fact, going by his agitated demeanour, she’d guess his whole stash of toys had been on his desk the day of Holt’s raid. This was bad, it had barely been a day and already she could see her friend fraying at the edges.

Gina agreed to take Jake to see Kevin. She didn’t have much faith in his plan but to be honest she probably owed him more than one chit and it would mean she could keep an eye on him.

She did her best to distract Jake whenever she spotted him picking at his skin or chewing his thumb, sometimes by handing him one of the numerous snacks she kept in her purse or by insisting he favourite her most recent tweet. At one point she even grabbed the hands that were pulling at his hair and forced him into acting as her dance partner in the middle of the street.

Faintly she remembered a time when Jake could stim happily without needing a toy to justify it. He would run his hands over the bumpy wallpaper in the hall outside Nanna’s apartment. He’d spin and flap his hands about in the playground. He’d sit repeating his favourite movie lines over and over because he liked the way they sounded, how they felt on his tongue. She remembered his dad chastising him for it: Sit still goddamn it you’re embarrassing me; If you don’t shut up you won’t have any friends left to annoy; Stop it or I swear to god I’ll leave you here. It didn’t seem to phase Jake much until he was seven and Roger really did leave. It wasn’t Jake’s fault, but that didn’t matter. Jake stopped spinning and flapping, he sat on his hands and kept his mouth shut as if his dad would return if only he could be normal. When the need became too much it would project itself harmfully in outbursts similar to what Gina had witnessed in the past few hours. Then Nanna had stepped in, she gave him a squishy stress ball assuring him it was perfectly normal, lots of people used them, but to Jake it made the world of difference. From there Nanna slowly but surely expanded his collection until Jake had an alternative to every harmful stim he’d developed.  
Contemplating Nanna’s genius, an idea sparked in Gina’s brain that later that evening had her on her hands and knees rooting around in a dusty airing cupboard she had yet to fill with spandies. She was honestly slightly overwhelmed by the number of towels and quilts Jake’s grandmother had managed to fit into the confined space before she died but eventually her efforts were rewarded as she touched upon the soft fleece of the blanket.

The blanket was Nanna’s piece de resistance, a fleecy underside and patchwork cotton top adorned with cartoon police cars and new york skylines. Sandwiched between the two layers in several pockets to ensure even distribution was enough rice to give the blanket a comforting heft. It was probably too light for a full-grown man but Gina figured it would still help Jake a whole lot. 

It was seven thirty by the time she made it to Jake’s apartment, she knocked on the door and was greeted by an exhausted but pleasantly surprised face.  
‘Hey Gina, what’re you doing here? Did you wanna spy on your old neighbours again? Because Mrs Hendriks is getting suspicious about the accuracy of your call out posts.’  
‘Oh please, if you sing to your birds that loudly you can’t expect to attract no media attention. But no Jake, I’m here to give you this.’  
She held out the brown paper bag that housed the blanket. Jake grabbed the bag with curiosity, his face lighting up as he realised it’s contents.  
‘Gina, I uh… thank you’ he stuttered, blushing.  
‘No problem boo, I got your back.’ That was all that needed to be said, she knew a lot of people perceived her as vapid but the people that really mattered didn’t need her to pour her heart out to see she cared, and she didn’t expect it from them either. What kind of dancer would she be if she didn’t believe actions could speak louder than words?

They smiled at each other for a moment before Jake sparked to life ‘Oh my god, Gina! They just released Street Dance on demand, do you wanna come in and watch it?’  
‘Okay but only if we can push back the furniture so I can dance along. Do you think you can get Rosa to teach me some ballet moves? I wanna add hip-hop classical fusion to my repertoire’ Gina replied, already pushing past him into the tiny apartment.


End file.
